


Change Of Heart

by ravenclawsecret



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4137933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenclawsecret/pseuds/ravenclawsecret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A preface to any future Drarry works. Rowling didn't exactly leave us with an easy place to pitch a relationship between these two, so this is my way of working around that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change Of Heart

Harry and Draco lay apart in their bed, together only where one's knee rested against the other's thigh. The night was warm, almost unbearably so, and while Draco slept lightly beneath only a sheet, Harry lay awake.

"Draco?" Harry asked quietly into the darkness.  
"Mmmm?" Draco responded into his pillow after a moment, only on the cusp of waking.  
"Do you ever wonder how we can be in love?" Harry asked tentatively.  
"What?" He paused "How do you mean?"  
"I mean, we hated each other for so long. And now look at us." Harry smiled to himself, despite his mild distress. When they had first announced that they were together to close friends, the surprise had been palpable. But the surprise of say Hermione or Pansy, was nothing compared to the couple's own when they had first realised their love.

"Hate is a strong word," Draco replied after a moment or two.  
"But the right word," Harry answered with considerable conviction for 2am.  
"True, but things change, people change. We change. We changed." Draco paused, having hoped to elicit a response from Harry, before continuing. "I mean, you dated girls back at school, and now, here you are, married to a man."  
"You dated girls too, didn't you?" Harry asked in a somewhat defensive tone, "Pansy?"  
"We pretended to date once, for my father's sake, before I had come out. But so much was different back then; we had greater things to worry about than the particulars of our sex lives. I mean, we were all either fighting for or against-" Draco stopped, unable to continue.  
"Voldemort," Harry finished quietly. Draco often had trouble using the name, not because he was afraid - Voldemort was long dead - but because he was ashamed, ashamed of what he and his family had been party to during the last wizarding war. The irremovable mark on his left forearm was a daily reminder of the atrocities he had supported, and even now, years on, Draco was always careful that he never had his sleeves rolled up in public, aware that not all of the magical community was as forgiving as his husband.

 

"Well, I haven't changed, I've just explored. And realised that I love other things also." Harry paused, then amended quietly, "that I love you." Draco recognised that they'd come full circle, and now that he was awake enough, decided to tackle the problem head-on.  
"Harry, why are you so worried that we fell in love? Even if it was sudden and seemingly without reason."  
"Because, I'm worried that we could just as suddenly fall out of love. Or, that you could fall out of love with me."  
"Why would I stop loving you?" Draco asked, snuggling into Harry despite the heat.  
"Why did you start loving me?"  
Draco rolled onto his side and looked into Harry's eyes,  
"Because I realised that you were brave, and loving, and intelligent, and," he paused, "and beautiful, physically and emotionally, beautiful."  
Harry fell silent for a moment; he had grown up being praised by everyone he met, but very rarely had he been loved in the way that he knew Draco loved him.  
"Because," Draco continued, "I never really hated you. I mean, I hated your ideologies, your beliefs, and I hated the way you so fiercely stood up for them. But I realised that what you had done was the most brave and loving thing I've ever known; you gave your life for those who had fought with you, who had stood with you, despite your stand seeming impossible." Draco lay back down next to Harry, resting his head on Harry's chest. "That's enough to make anyone fall in love with you."

 

A silence fell between them, broken only by their steady breathing. Harry ran his hands through Draco's hair, white in the moonlight floating in between the open curtains.  
"And I realised that I was wrong, the ideas I had been force-fed since birth and supported all my life were wrong." Draco continued quickly: "And I'm not trying to blame this on my parents. I know that I could have turned my back on them and their beliefs if I had really wanted to. But it was easier, so much easier to just go along with it." Draco's voice cracked a little at the confession. "So I did, I went along with it, pretending not to realise how many were dying because of the Death Eaters and-" he paused again, but continued before Harry could complete his sentence, "-and Voldemort. And then they asked me to kill Dumbledore, and I had to really commit to the cause," he finished with a kind of grim humour.  
"So why'd you go along with it?" Harry asked gently.  
"Because, by that time I knew I was gay and I had told my parents. They were mostly fine with it, but I felt like this was a way I could prove myself, prove to them that I was still the same Draco" he finished in a small voice, even now embarrassed by how he had felt as a teenager.  
"Your parents were 'mostly fine'?" Harry asked.  
"Yeah, my mother was more accepting than my father, but they were both okay with it. I think that they didn't really like it, but they recognised that it was who I was and that it couldn't be changed."  
"So you thought killing Dumbledore would help gain their favour?" It sounded harsher than Harry had meant, and he felt Draco flinch slightly, "I didn't mean to sound  accusing, it's just that you've never told me any of this before, and I guess I'm just a little surprised."  
"I thought killing Dumbledore would redeem me - because I thought I needed to redeem myself." Draco said, aware as he spoke how misguided he was, and how much he lost because of it.  
"But it was all wrong," Draco continued in a concluding tone, "and I realised that. And as I realised that, I realised that I had been wrong to hate you all those years. And pretty soon after that, I realised that I actually rather liked you, that I love you. And that's not going to change, because I do love you Harry, truly." He reached his face up to Harry's, and kissed him gently, their lips just sightly brushing.  
"Is that okay?" he asked, smirking, as he settled back into the cuddle. 


End file.
